Joseph Beuys

Online caption

This painting echoes the artist's sculptural work of the same period. It was made while Beuys was creating a series of reliefs of animals, including different fish and sea creatures, from slate. The use of colour in Beuys's work is always significant as he used it like a substance or material, meaning that colour became particularly important and representative. The bright red suggests blood, and, in turn, life. The symbol of the fish has also been used to represent life by several different religious groups. Beuys once expressed the opinion that fish represent continuity, as, unlike man, they cannot escape their fixed point in evolution.

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